Why I Dug Into Sebastian Zepatas Stuff
Been stuck on a client website redesign for weeks. Colors felt wrong, layouts boring. Coffee wasn’t helping anymore. Remembered seeing Sebastian Zepatas name pop up on design forums lately.
Hunting Down His Portfolio
Googled his work first thing Tuesday morning. Took three different searches because I kept spelling his last name wrong. Finally landed on a Behance gallery showing his recent stuff.
Scrolled through project thumbnails feeling like:
- Damn, that gradient transition looks smooth
- Who puts neon green with mud brown? But somehow works??
- Broken grid layouts giving me anxiety but also… intriguing
Stealing Like An Artist (Shhh)
Grabbed my sketchpad and straight-up copied:
- His weird overlapping text boxes from a music festival poster
- That brutalist footer from an e-commerce site
- Experimental typography pairing – Comic Sans lookalike with serious serif font (madness!)
Mixed these into my client wireframes just to see. Looked chaotic at first like my toddler’s finger painting.
Making It Actually Usable
Spent Thursday tweaking stolen ideas into something functional:
- Toned down seizure-inducing colors to muted versions
- Kept broken layout but added subtle alignment guides
- Made overlapping elements clickable (major headache)
Coded rough prototype while listening to industrial techno. Felt like Frankenstein sewing body parts together.
Final Output & Lessons
Client loved the “edgy but professional” vibe. Key takeaways:
- Bold doesn’t mean unusable if you test interactions
- People actually notice intentional “mistakes”
- Always keep antacids handy when experimenting
Zepata’s stuff looks cooler in his portfolio than real life. But rip it apart, sand down the edges, and you got gold.
